Every eligible person’s vote, when entered in a state primary, has to count or the total is wrong, not being political, but there’s no excuse, it’s like saying only pineapples can vote in hawaii, or only eskimos can vote in alaska, or if you vote in california it’s too far away, or if you voted by mail it doesn’t count, every state had a different date, as long as it’s before the general election, you don’t have to redo it, it violates voter rights, and what do other people in the world think about this, because americans seem to think it’s okay to take out the votes from florida, and that’s not right, there’s no excuse, all of the votes should count for both sides and both parties or the total is not correct, not correct, there’s no excuse, right, from a logical standpoint???
19 Responses
Stay in touch with the conversation, subscribe to the RSS feed for comments on this post.
I Think They Should Let Florida And Michigan Votes Count Otherwise What Is The Point. I Am Scottish Hillary Clinton Supporter And I Think That The Democratic Party And Trying Everything In Their Power To Make Sure She Doesnt Win The Nomination – Have They looked at The Polls Later She Is The Best Candidate To Lead Not Only America But The World Into The Future!
Sorry, its a primary. You have no “right” to vote in one. They didn’t even have primaries or general elections when the country was founded. In theory, each party can just run out a candidate of their choosing, but they obviously involve more people in the process because they get a sense of who has more support. But the primaries don’t even select a candidate. The party conventions do, and they pick the candidate based on support received in the primary.
There’s no right to vote in a party primary, and there’s nothing in the Constitution about voting in a party primary.
Primary voting (or caucuses) is completely and entirely owned by the political parties, which are not governmental agencies, and thus not bound by the Constitution. And they can do with it as they wish.
Why is this so difficult to understand?
1776??? Did we have primaries in 1776?
Your question assumes that “americans think that it is okay to take out the votes from Florida”.
It’s not America doing anything of the sort. It is the Democratic National Party. It’s their rules that wear broken. Complain to them about it.
As far as this American is concerned… I don’t care.
I think they broke the agreed upon rules.
Did they mean take only half the Delegates away in 1776?
“The Republican National Committee removed half of Florida’s delegates because the state committee moved its Republican primary before February 5.”
It is a shame that the party who’s motto is “we must not disenfranchise any voter” is about to disenfranchise a state with as many voters as Florida. If I were a florida democrat I would just stay home on election day.
What I think is that it’s the Democratic party in Florida that makes the rules for the primaries, not the rest of the country.
I also think that is the longest run on sentence i have ever seen.
In 1776, New York never voted for the Declaration of Independece because they couldn’t get their act together. So, it’s business as usual.
they also didn’t mean that someone who has less pledged delegates less superdelegates less POPULAR VOTES to become the nominee.
Party rules – Florida knew their votes wouldn’t count when they pushed up the voting date – they shouldn’t have done that if they wanted a voice.
The Democrats shot themselves in the foot, AGAIN.
Well, ask the broken party why they excluded them. They did it to themselves with their own rules……straight out comedy!
All of the Democrats votes should not count.
It’s just a political game being played out by Hills and her team. They probably estimated that they were not going to gain in Florida, so just gave it the shove.
Back to the last Presidential election in USA – you may recall that thousands of votes were declared null & void by a Conservative woman in the State of Florida. These apparently were the votes cast by Senior Citizens who had made the grievious error of voting Democrat.
Could be wrong, but could be right in thinking that the Democrats have simply written Florida off as unwinnable – no matter what.
I do understand however that not allowing the folk of Florida to cast their vote for party candidate for the presidency is very undemocratic.
My view is that if only three people turn up on the village green, they should be allowed to cast their votes no matter what.
I think it’s going to cost Hills a lot.
Yeah, well if you knew anything about history you would know that a) the founding fathers put nothing in the Constitution about political parties and b) the founding fathers warned us about the dangers of forming political parties and letting them run the government. See if you can find the word “superdelegate” anywhere in the Constitution. Can’t do it, can you?
Further, if you knew anything, you would know that the parties run the primaries and the parties can make the rules as they see fit.
So if Florida and Michigan hadn’t broken the party’s rules, the votes of their primaries would have counted. But they didn’t, they broke the rules and now they’re being punished.
Get a grip and get over it.
Things worked a little differently in 1776–then, only the national party bosses picked the nominee in the first place. If Florida and Michigan had followed the rules, we wouldn’t be in this mess to start with. They were warned what would happen, and they went ahead and violated them anyway. And now, even though they were warned, they’re crying foul.
The National Democratic Party is trying to resolve the issue as best they can, but there are only so many options. Since Clinton and Obama both agreed not to campaign there, and Clinton broke the agreement and left her name on the ballot in Michigan, it wouldn’t be fair to just give her all the delegates, would it? And “other candidate” could be considered Obama, so if they apportioned delegates as they usually do, even if she won both Florida and Michigan by a fairly large margin, she wouldn’t have enough delegates to beat Obama.
Years ago Red Skelton has a skit in which he played the part of a little nasty kid . He would get ready to do something he knew was wrong , and would say , ” If I dood it I get a licking – - – I dood it ” .
That’s what happened with Florida and Michigan . They were told that if they moved their election ahead , the votes wouldn’t be counted . They did it anyway , then bellyached that their votes aren’t being counted .
The National Democrat Party is a club , and has rules that must be followed . If you know the rule , but decide to go against it . Pay the price .
There wasn’t a Presidential primary in 1776. There was, in fact, no election held in the colonies to select any public official whose constituency was any larger than a single colony.
The purpose of the primary is to determine delegates to a Party convention. That’s a party matter, not a government one. The parties are entitled to set their requirements.
To avoid problems with different rules for different parties, both the Democrats and the Republicans agreed that, with four exceptions for states with early-contest traditions, the rules would require that no selections be made before Feb. 5. Both parties’ national governing committees enacted that rule. Michigan and Florida have representatives on those committees, and they voted for the rule.
There is no comparison between primary voting and general elections. Many states don’t hold primaries; some hold them on different dates for different parties. But the need for some limits is clear; otherwise, my home town could have declared that its Presidential preference poll (held March, 2007) would control delegate allocations.
And that’s the point. It was obviously too early to produce sensible results then. The parties have a clear interest in making sure that there is enough campaign time to give the voters a clear choice, and that that campaigning be national in scope. A limit to the span of time during which delegates are selected is both appropriate and entirely legitimate.
The violation of voter rights, such as it is, was committed by the states of Michigan and Florida. They knew what they were doing.
The notion that delegate selection to a party convention, to select a party nominee, is anything but a party matter is either silly or totalitarian. Either way, there’s no excuse for proposing such a thing, from a logical standpoint.
Let’s put it another way: suppose that some state passed a rule saying that only pineapples, eskimos, or some other group (say, white people) could vote in their primary. Would you expect a party to knuckle under and seat their delegation?
The political parties are given wide latitude in determining how their candidates are selected. That’s why we end up with the confusing set of caucuses, and indirect elections to determine delegates. The superdelegates are also not very democratic.
I understand your objection, but the rules were set by the party, and are being enforced by the party. I think you are going to find, however, that they will end up being seated, and that it won’t matter, as Hillary will be effectively out of the race in the next few days.